Last Wednesday of the first week of April, my family and I went to the beach. We went to our favorite beach resort in Lian, Batangas (2 hour drive from Manila). It was really planned to go there after the Lenten season to avoid traffic and too much people(it would be hard to get a cottage in a resort if it’s peak season).

Being in the sun for too long will burn your skin and can give you skin cancer. I learned the former the hard way. Every time we went to the beach, my skin would become so red and painful. What is it? Sunburn! What’s even worse is my face would darken! I look baluga na!

So this time around, I have wisen up. I used a sunblock!

Put on that sunblock lotion!

I used the Dermplus Moisturizing Sunblock. It will give you protection against UVA and UVB rays given off by the sun at the same time acts as a moisturizer.

This sunblock’s UVA rating is 4 stars (5 being the highest). What does that mean? It means this product will protect you from signs of aging caused by the sun at a very high level!

How about UVB? Well UVB rays are not present year round unlike UVA. UVB is present during summer times, just like now. UVB rays are the culprit for sunburns and skin cancer. This sunblock has an SPF(Sun Protection Factor) of 130. One thing to remember is that the SPF rating system can only be applied to UVB and not UVA. SPF130 is already very high. The higher the SPF, the longer you can stay under the sun and the less likely to acquire skin problems caused by the sun, such as the most common, sunburn.

What’s more is that it is water resistant and PABA(Para-Aminobenzoic Acid), a chemical that causes allergic reactions.

So, thirty minutes before I hit the waters to go skim boarding, I applied it to my skin, including my face. So what happened after my prolonged exposure to the sun? Nothing! Why nothing? Because I did not get any sunburn! That is the ultimate purpose of a sunblock, preventing any skin alterations caused by the sun. I am so happy that I did not get any sunburn or whatsoever even though I was exposed when the sun is at its strongest (10 AM to 4 PM).

Dermplus Moisturizing Sunblock gave me a worry-free, fun filled, time under the sun!

One of the hottest topics right now is the Cybercrime Law. I need not to further elaborate on the topic because almost all netizens are aware of the issue. Pero we need a deeper knowledge on this Law. That is why I took the time and read the Republic Act Number 10175, or better known as Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. Ito ang mga naintindihan ko:

“Libel. — The unlawful or prohibited acts of libel as defined in Article 355 of the Revised Penal Code, as amended, committed through a computer system or any other similar means which may be devised in the future.” (Source: http://www.gov.ph/2012/09/12/republic-act-no-10175/)

Art. 355. Libel means by writings or similar means. — A libel committed by means of writing, printing, lithography, engraving, radio, phonograph, painting, theatrical exhibition, cinematographic exhibition, or any similar means, shall be punished by prision correccional in its minimum and medium periods or a fine ranging from 200 to 6,000 pesos, or both, in addition to the civil action which may be brought by the offended party. (Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/revisedpenalcodeofthephilippinesbook2.htm#.UGvQnZjA_HY)

What made the online libel even more scary is the insertion of Section 19. “SEC. 19. Restricting or Blocking Access to Computer Data. — When a computer data is prima facie found to be in violation of the provisions of this Act, the DOJ shall issue an order to restrict or block access to such computer data.” (Source: http://www.gov.ph/2012/09/12/republic-act-no-10175/). What does prima facie means? In layman’s terms, any activity that violates the said law(with sufficient and outright evidence) can be used to prosecute an ordinary citizen. So kung tanga ka at kung anu-ano ang pinagpopost mo tugkol sa mayor nyo na tipong madami syang babae,e goodluck na lang sayo. Furthermore, the DOJ has the right to take down your website if they find the site to be in violation of the said law. So, they can block access to your website just for saying “the government sucks”.

I am currently cleaning my PC before reformatting it and I found this reaction paper of mine regarding the local film called “Sakay”. Here is the content:

Sakay: The Vilified Hero

Macario Sakay was a very brave and tenacious man of his time. Even if he was imprisoned he still dared oppose the colonial rule of America over the Philippines. This is what the movie “Sakay” was about. The story revolves around Macario Sakay, a man from Tondo that joined the Philippine Revolution and fought against the Spaniards. But after the Spaniards were driven off, another colonial rule was yet to come. And under the U.S. colonial rule, he was imprisoned, but was later on pardoned. In the movie, when he is a free man already. He is having second thoughts whether to continue the fight for freedom or to live a peaceful life. It might have been a very difficult decision to make considering the experience he went through when he was in jail. He neither wants to go back to prison nor to die. But the ideals of his deceased father in a form of a ghostly image guided him to continue the fight. The movement Sakay was forming was being funded by the principalias, they too want to drive the Americans away. But in the end, they too would betray Sakay and his men, the way the Americans tricked Sakay by lies and deception just to capture him.

The Americans were just as cruel as the Spaniards; they would execute those rebelling against them and get a hold of properties owned by suspected collaborators with those, whom they call “bandits”. Bandit is what Sakay is to their eyes; doing no good, opposing the government and everything they can throw at them. For them, he is a nuisance to their ruling and later on will become their biggest headache. But the Spaniards were not as clever as the Americans; divide et conquera, a strategy that would make the Philippines fall into their hands swiftly. This was carried on by establishing the Philippine Constabulary, a military force consisting of native Filipinos. Filipinos who have betrayed their country itself, fighting fellow Filipinos, underlings of Uncle Sam. They have forgotten what they were fighting for before, blinded by all things luxurious brought by America. They have accepted what was presented at their front, losing the ideals of a free state and going on the American way.

Sakay founded his own government, the Tagalog Republic. His government had a flag, a system of taxation, a disciplined army. His government operated in total defiance of the US authorities. This made the US take on Sakay seriously. But in the crossfire, the innocent were being slaughtered, burned houses, and lives taken as if they were being a shield for Sakay. Another thing was, by establishing his own government, he had ignored other Filipinos outside of his government. But I understand that without a firm leadership, such rebellion would not be possible, thus, his idea of continuing the fight for freedom would just be a dream and nothing else.

Sakay was defined by the Americans as a bandit. They see him that way. First and foremost, real bandits, guerillas and robbers that were stealing crops and domestic animals, raiding houses, killing people, when caught, identify themselves as Sakay’s men, which is not true. Of course this would give Sakay a bad image not only to the Filipinos but to the Americans as well. Another thing, Sakay’s men do raid and kill Americans in order to get arms and ammunitions, a very vital component if you are going to war of course. But that is what the Americans think of him and I look in the opposite direction. He did what he had to do; to protect this country’s freedom. It is not a crime to either defend your country against foreign invaders or conform to their ruling.

Alas, betrayal works its wonders; a fellow Filipino traded another man’s freedom for his own personal gains. Dr. Dominador Gomez, one of the supposedly benefactor of Sakay, betrayed him and his men. He was about to go to prison because of his collaboration with the Spaniards; charging him with sedition because he served as a surgeon in the Spanish Army in Cuba. Sakay’s surrender was his bargain for freedom. So after Sakay and de Vega was hanged. His case was opened and then dismissed for “insufficient evidence”. He said that the governor-general promises to create a national assembly of Filipinos elected by the people where the leaders can be trained to eventual self-government. But there was a catch, Sakay and his men must surrender peacefully and they will be given amnesty. Amnesty was not given but instead death was already lurking when they trekked down to Cavite.

We will learn a lot from this film. There are many social issues in the film that as of now still exist in our society; an illness that has its history that goes way-way back. Even though we are not under the American rule anymore, manifestations of their colonial rule still prevail and thrive within our society. A new form of colonialism is taking place. But I realized something very important. Colonialism gave birth to nationalism. We did not long for our country’s right when we’re not yet ruled by other countries. Indeed colonialism gave way to fighting for a common goal, freedom.

There have been numerous events or disasters wherein plastic was the main “culprit”. The most notable would be when Typhoon Ondoy hit the Philippines last September 26, 2009. Many properties, lives, and businesses were left in ruins and worse, lost. After the heavy flooding subsided, a large amount of plastic garbage was found clogging the sewers, floating on the rivers, and are literally everywhere. The problem became obvious to the masses that the reason for the excessive flooding is because of the extreme use of plastics. The government immediately turned its attention to the possibility of finding a substitute for plastics as means of secondary packaging in the market place.

Remember that day when Manila was submerged? That day when everyone was crying out for help?

Now, many municipalities are complying with the government’s imposition of the plastic ban and are now using paper bags for packing grocery supplies, purchased goods and whatnot. This is called House Bill 4840, to be known as the Plastic Bag Regulation Act of 2011.

But does using paper as a mean for secondary packaging really solves the problem? Is using paper a wise economic decision with respect to the producers that are required to provide it for bagging the products their consumers purchased?

We will try to analyze which is better, for both consumer and producer, for the environment, and for the sake of economics.

SPACE UTILITY

Polyethylene bags can house many items. You can also use plastic bags to put clothes, food, light equipments and others and you can take it anywhere carrying it. You can also put wet goods in it without it breaking. But with paper bags, you could only put so much so as not to break it. You can bring multiple plastic bags at the same time because it has holes to put your hands into. Unlike paper bags, you can only hold one or two and each bag can hold less items than one plastic bag can. Furthermore, supermarkets nowadays use another paper bag as a secondary layer to support the weight of the items inside. This would incur additional expenses to the side of the market owners and consequently, additional profit to the producers of paper bags. Paper also requires 5 times trucking capacity compared to plastic due to the bulkiness of paper bags.

There is also the issue of space with respect to landfills. Paper takes more space in landfills than plastics.

That’s one smoky mountain

COST

Producing paper is more costly than producing plastic.

Plastic is made up of oil. The oils used for production is only a byproduct of oil refining. Waste products from oil refining were utilized to produce another product. Economically speaking, it is a wise utilization of spoilage from production. Furthermore, the entire plastic making process only involves the use of electricity. Therefore, producing plastic is cheap.

All squared up

Paper is made up of wood, pulpwood to be exact. Trees are cut down, transported by large trucks and fed into machines that both use fossil fuel. The next step would be cooking it with tremendous heat and pressure, and then digested by using limestone and sulfurous acid for eight hours. The steam and moisture is then vented out to the atmosphere and the wood becomes pulp. This process only makes the pulp and not the paper per se. The pulp is then washed and bleached, both of these stages needs thousands of gallons of clean water. Coloring is then added to more water, and is then combined in a ratio of 1 part pulp to 400 parts water to finally make paper. The pulp-water mixture is dumped into a web of bronze wires. The water showers through, leaving the pulp, and then rolled into finished paper.

With the process described above, we can already see that producing paper is no simple process and requires a lot of resources.

Millions of trees are cut down, which requires the use of machineries that also has maintenance costs

Deliveries to the mill with the use of big trucks use fossil fuels

Machineries are used to cut the trees into manageable portions

Chemical agents are added to the mixture just to make the pulp

Thousands of gallons of clean water are used

Coloring agents are used

With all the resources used above, it is obvious that producing paper is way more costly than producing plastic. The expenses on machineries, chemicals, water, and electricity should all be taken into account as to how much paper would cost.

In short:

It takes almost four times as much energy to produce paper than plastic or polyethylene bag

Producing plastic uses twenty times as much clean water than plastic

Millions of trees have to be cut down just to produce paper and to be used for grocery items, which is usually thrown away and not recycled or reused.

Did I say millions?

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

Majority of people view plastic as non-environment friendly material. The masses are becoming environment-conscious and anything biodegradable is good for the Earth. These include the use of paper as means of secondary packaging. People think that if they reduce plastic use and switch to paper, they are somehow saving the environment. It is amazing how disasters can change a person’s perception towards pressing matters. But what the consumer does not know is that paper is as bad as plastic bags to the environment. And paper may be even worse.

Yes, you read it right, paper is as bad as plastics, or even worse.

Here are some comparisons:

Production of paper requires the cutting of millions of trees. These millions of trees, if not cut, can convert Carbon Dioxide and prevent flooding. Plastics, if not disposed properly, can kill marine life, cause flooding, and overcrowded landfills

Paper bags cause 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags

The final product, which is paper, requires the use of big tractors, use of machineries, and harmful chemicals that emit greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Plastics on the other hand, require crude oil and natural gas. Plastic bags only uses electricity

Paper bags require 4 times as much energy to make compared to that of a plastic bag

Paper bags use thousands of gallons of clean water

RECYCLING

Both paper and plastic can be recycled so it can be of further use after its primary form has fulfilled its purpose. But further analysis reveals that recycling might not be the best idea for paper and plastic also has recycling disadvantage.

Recycling paper requires the usage of water and chemicals again which defeats the purpose of recycling and makes recycled papers more expensive than virgin paper.

It would take 91% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it would take to recycle a pound of paper. This means we are better off recycling plastics than paper energy-wise.

Plastic is easy to recycle and does not cost so much; re-melting and recasting to the desired form is the only process involved. Two thirds of the energy used in producing virgin plastic is only used in manufacturing new plastic from recycled ones. The only drawback is, the recycled plastic is weaker due to weaker bonds between molecules. Thus, producing lower-quality product.

Biodegradable plastics are a misnomer. Some of these plastics do not really degrade or decompose. They are recycled plastic mixed with cornstarch. The cornstarch biodegrades and breaks the plastic into little pieces.

CONCLUSION

Even though plastic wins by a landslide against paper, believe it or not, neither is the best option. The making and recycling of paper use a lot of energy, fossil fuel, chemicals, and most important of all, millions of trees each year. Making paper bags incur a wide range of costs; these costs are not only of monetary and energy value but environmental as well. While with plastic, monetary costs are considerably low. Since plastics are just the byproduct of oil refining, its production reduces wastage and generates profits from the supposedly to-be-disposed-of substance. But being cheap and expendable also have its drawbacks. Plastics in landfills are an age old problem; they decompose in an extremely very low rate. This situation creates space problems for landfills; tons of plastic wastes are dumped everyday and they are not going anywhere. Furthermore, improper disposal of plastic threatens marine life and man as well. Plastic that ends up in the ocean kills 1.5 million marine animals each year.

Poor turtle, he’s on a plastic diet

Also, plastics that clog major waterways produce massive flooding that could destroy anything in its path. In a country like ours where we experience many typhoons in a year, flooding is not new to us and is always in the news when a storm is present. Improper disposal of plastics and garbage multiply the level of flood and the damage as well.

The best option is to use reusable bags made out of natural fiber or canvas bags. In some municipalities, the local government encourages consumers to bring their own bag on scheduled days.

You can go with this, or you can go with that

One reusable bag can be used multiple times and could last for 2 to 3 years. Reusable bags are also 14 times better than plastic and 39 times better than paper bags provided that it is used 500 times within its life cycle. The global impact of using reusable bags will be significant; resources will be allocated to satisfy other needs and wants and at the same time the environment’s burden will be lessen.

Are you always stressed from all that hustle and bustle from the city life? When was the last time you had your R&R? Do you want to freshen up and be reborn? Hmmm? Maybe you need some time out, take one step back, and return to nature.

Banayad na Araw

If you’re looking for a different experience, an outdoor experience, you should definitely go to Anawangin Cove in Zambales. It is a boat ride from the shores of Pundakit, Zambales. The sand is white, the water is clear, the ambience is so laid back.

If you like the outdoors and you like to camp out near the shore, you should definitely go here. I’m an adventure lover and I would say that I really had a great time staying there!

What I like the most in Anawangin is its atmosphere; it is sooo light and laid back. It’s like if you are there, all your problems will not be able to follow you there. Even if your problems try to contact you, you will be out of coverage area(literally and figuratively. Walang signal dun). Ang sarap sarap sarap talaga. Pramis!

Did I mention it's so laid back there?

Plus, the people that take care of the place are very accommodating; they let us cook inside their house and tend to us when we ask for assistance.

The place is just a gift from nature! You have to see it for yourself to revel on its beauty.

Turn back to nature

But wait! There’s more! There are still untold features about this place. Going deeper into the cove, you’ll discover another hidden paradise.

Go deeper

If you walk along the shallow, watery trail, you will end up here.

Speechless...

We also went to Capones Island and the abandoned light house.

Waves crashing at your feet

And oh, the background of my blog site is also a shot taken from Capones a few years back. Haha, just to let you know.

The weather is a blessing

The trip will not be complete if you do not go to the derelict light house. Aside from the hiking included going to the top, there is still the flight of stairs going to the top of the light house. Mag eksersays tayo tuwing umaga!

Look above, look below

Sorry Rina, wala ka sa pic. Peace! =)

One thing for this kind of trip, if you’re not getting sunburn, you’re not having fun!